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New ICD
My name is Don and I had a St Jude ICD fitted on December 31,2013. I'm 49 years old and on December 23, I thought I had a bad case of heartburn but after taking some antacids, I was feeling worse so I had my son drive me to the ER (should've called 911 . that's another story) and I was admitted to the hospital for 9 days after they did a cardioversion to get me back on rhythm. The next day, my doctor told me I was lucky to be alive since my heart rate was at 250 bpm because I was suffering a Vtach. During my stay, I got the million dollar workup , echo, angio, MRI, ep study. All of the results were indicative of a healthy heart with 65% ejection fraction. They were stumped as to what caused my episode so they installed an ICD.
I have a couple of questions. First off, how long should I take off from work? I'm covered with FMLA and I've got the sick days saved up. My union is working to get me transferred to an indoor job. I've got an ICD restudy scheduled for Feb 3rd and that's when the electrocardiologist will let me know when I can return. Any thoughts?
Secondly, will my ICD prevent me from using my riding lawn mower? Thanks in advance.
4 Comments
Looks like
by Theknotguy - 2014-01-23 11:01:51
Looks like you have problems on the ventricle side. Not good as ventricle arrhythmias can kill you rather quickly.
Rule of thumb you'll see on this site is 4 to 6 weeks. During that time you can't lift your elbow above the shoulder on the PM side. You need to do mild exercise on the PM side to keep the shoulder from getting stiff. Then do mild exercise for the rest of your body. If you can get cardiac rehab I'd highly recommend it.
If you have a very active job you might consider going to 90 days before going full at it. That will give the body time to grow around the leads and really get them settled in. (I was lifting 90 pound 4x8 sheets of wood. Doctor says that's out - more than 90 pounds per shoulder. ) But I can still move smaller and lighter sizes of wood. Although the guys at the shop said, "You won't be moving s**t!" (Guess I got told.)
I had a lot of trauma before getting my PM so I'm having a longer recovery period. So I'm not a good one to tell you how soon to get back to work. I'm past 90 days and still am not in good enough shape to return to the shop. (Mind is willing but body keeps putting me back in the ER.)
As far as lawn mowers, equipment in general... You'll see a lot on this site about people using things that are in the warning books for PM / ICD's. We have people sky diving, scuba diving, marathon running, working in power plants, running heavy electrical equipment, etc. You'll get comments both ways - don't use them because there is a warning - warnings are over reactions imposed by lawyers. Your choice. I tend to go on the over reaction side as I've put a rare earth magnet from a name tag directly over top of my PM with no effect.
Remember, I keep saying PM as that's what I have. ICD's may be a slightly different electronic device so I'll let the ICD people on the forum chime in on that issue.
In the meantime, hang in there. Life gets better.
Theknotguy
ICD restudy
by guitarman - 2014-02-03 06:02:34
I had my ICD restudy done today and the doctor cleared me for work with no restrictions. My heart is healthy and I've got an ICD. He sees no reason why I can't pick up my life where I left off when I had the Vtach. Sweet!
You know you're wired when...
The dogs invisible fence prevents you from leaving the backyard.
Member Quotes
I wasn't really self-conscious about it. I didn't even know I had one until around six or seven years old. I just thought I had a rock in my side.
Hey There, Geetar Man!!!
by donr - 2014-01-23 08:01:50
Welcome to the club. It'll be quite a gig. There are already a bunch of musicians of various stripes in here, so take a seat & tune that sucker up!
Oh, just so you'll know - there are more "Dons" in here that at a Mafia convention. There are Donr (that's me); Donb (That's him, up in MI). We call one another & ourselves "The Other Don." Someday we'll all figure out who we are. Throwing in the two or so of you who have signed up lately, it's gonna be better than Abbott & Costello doing "Who's on First" in real time.
Any way - as to your question (sorta). You do, indeed have a Ventricular problem. That V-Tach can be messy. MOF, a lot of the Ventricular problems are messy. If all cardios were issued rabbit ears, say the word V-Tach at a convention & that's all you'd see - rabbit ears - just like a field of TV sets in the old days (or maybe q reunion of Gloria Steinem & her Playboy Club waitress friends)!
A couple of nights ago I was talking to the head designer in the hydraulic section in God's Homo Sapien shop about hearts & all the problems we have here on Earth w/ them. He kinda flapped his wings to get all the feathers going the same direction & told me all the problems he had over the millennia coming up w/ a decent design for both the pumping valves & the control systems. Seems that Man (the species, as opposed to gender) had found ways to live much longer than the original design had anticipated & he was working on new & improved models right now. He said that we had come up w/ some pretty decent patches for the shortcomings in reliability - especially w/ the PM/ICD systems. Commented that when the "Old Man" briefed them all on what he wanted - you know "...in his own image..." he was surprised that the end product was as talented as it is & he was happy to lend certain of the humans talent.
Anyway - he said that his original design only had Ventricles, but did not work very well - especially when under stress running from dinosaurs, sabre tooth tigers & other predators. Just did not pump efficiently, even in the closed loop system they put out. Decided the system needed a supercharger, so came up w/ the concept of the atria. Much better. The atria made sure that the ventricles filled up w/ blood before trying to pump & it made a world of difference.
In the process, they tried all sorts of solutions, even coming up w/ a double heart system, but the controls & mechanics were too complex & not very cost effective for a place like Earth, w/ its good oxygen laden atmosphere. Just too expensive to make - after all, they work on a budget, too. So they relegated that system to the planet Vulcan - one of the earlier inhabited planets they created. Worked quite well w/ the chlorophyll based green blood that had been developed for the environment there.
Back to the story: Now their problem was to come up w/ a control system to adequately operate a 4 chamber design. The side-by-side model we see has changed little over time. He said they delivered to Earth the 9th design Mod of the original control system & it's pretty good, but still has some glitches in the reliability area. It's prone to suddenly fail for no apparent reason & things get all forschimmeled & need a patch to get it back in line. One of the problems was reliability of the AV node - it just is still giving them fits. It:
1) sometimes fires too soon - giving things called PVC's
2) other times, it fires from the wrong location - giving things called SVT problems
3) sometimes it doesn't even fire at all - giving 3rd degree Blocks
4) then again it takes off on its own at unpredictable rates - giving V-Tach & V-Fib.
Some of these are benign - like the PVC's. They won't kill people. But he's seen situations where an AV Node will go ape at firing prematurely, creating long strings of PVC's. Bad! That can lead to V-Tach.
The SVT's can be a real pain, debilitating sometimes,
Then we get to the V-Tach - well, that, he told me is approaching dangerous territory. Too much of that can lead to V-Fib. That one can be quickly fatal. The V-Tach at least is coordinated beating of the Ventricles, but too fast for efficient pumping. The bad part about the V-Fib is that it is uncoordinated & the muscle reduces itself into a quivering, useless blob that cannot move enough blood to satisfy the body's needs. The bad part is that the Tach can easily transform itself int the Fib - BAD - BIG time.
Finally, he told me that the controller design engineer realized the problem could occur, so he designed a correction circuit that only required a sudden jolt of higher voltage to resynchronize things. Unfortunately, they hadn't time to design the generator & control circuit for that before the Creator wanted the Prototype model delivered. But Man managed to step in w/ his Defibrillator circuits & devices. Actually, they called the problem "Gronification" & the circuit they were designing was called a "Disgronififier."
His control engineer was quite impressed that Man had found this entry port for the Disgronifier input to correct the problem.
He was equally impressed by Man's ability to create a "Patch" to install right in the body to fix a myriad of other minor & major defects that kept jumping up. "You know," he commented, "When The Creator made Man in his own image, he did a pretty good job of it, especially in the ability to learn, adapt and fix things. at least with respect to our area of responsibility."
Going forward, he commented " The Creator is especially pleased that Man has been able to study the functioning of the heart & determine the relative seriousness of the many design defects we wound up with - especially in the Ventricles. They're a complex situation, you know. But at least Man discovered that there is a progression in seriousness from the PVC to the V-Fib. One day, over some good wine imported from Earth he commented on how much he liked the PM/ICV combination Man developed to take care of the Gronification problem. I've asked the creator if we could introduce our own patch for that particular problem - you know like the painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel - except have the 'Finger of God' reach down to touch the heart - sorta like Bill Gates fixes his Windows software against potential security breeches. Every time I take it to him, he throws me out on my Kiester - that's why my wings look so ragged (as he gives them another good shaking). Let's see just how far this creature I created can go in understanding what I made. Oh. well - can't blame me for trying!"
Suddenly there was a loud clap of thunder & I awoke in a soaking wet state from sweating. A wicked case of heartburn didn't help my situation much, either. As I sat on the edge of my bed, contemplating what I had just dreamed, I wondered if it could all be true. Finally, after a few seconds thought, I concluded it was too much Mexican how chile peppers in my suppertime burritos, so I rolled over & went back to sleep.
A small feather fluttered to the floor.
Don